Virtual server hosting

Why virtualization?

The use of virtual servers moves the University towards the following goals:

Reduce overall cost of physical hardware.

Energy savings by reduction of physical hardware.

Minimizes duplicated services across campus.

Central IT has a robust virtualization environment with the capacity to host hundreds of Windows or Linux virtual servers. The virtual datacenter utilizes VMware and has a clustered environment between two datacenters.

This service appeals to departments who want to maintain autonomy over their server management without the expense of purchasing and housing their own hardware. Central IT can also manage the server OS installation, configuration, patching and maintenance, as well as backup/recovery, security, networking, hardware, storage and monitoring for those departments without their own system administrator.

Pricing information

Cost model

You pay for a pre-allocation of resources which results in a predictable end of month billing.

You can expand/contract your resources at any time by submitting a service request.

CPU, RAM, and disk space can be changed dynamically later if needed. Over allocation wastes resources. It is very easy to add disk later, but very hard to take back unused disk, so it is always strongly advised that you start off with just a bit more disk than you actually need for the install and then add more disk if needed later. Any large disk requests will be reviewed.

General funded units receive up to 5 Base VMs at no cost but pays for all additions. Any VMs over 5 requires prior approval from the ACIO-CCS.

Any large VMs (large number of ram, CPU, etc.) will need to be approved by the ACIO-CCS.

Base VM: 2 GB ram, 2 vCPU, 80 GB Hard drive

DESCRIPTION

COST

Basic Fee (base VM, licensing, support)

$55 per VM per year

vCPU (up to Max 8 Total)

$5 per vCPU per year

Memory (up to Max 64 GB Total)

$10 per GB per year

Tier I Disk Storage (up to max 1 TB total)

$0.75 per GB per year

Tier II Disk Storage (up to max 3 TB total)

$0.40 per GB per year

Optional Basic Backup Support (30 days onsite)

$150/annually

Note: You must purchase software and operating system licenses for each virtual machine.

Tier I disk storage

Tier I disk storage is our highest performance tier designated for more demanding machine workloads. This is a combination of solid-state drives and fast 10K spinning drives known as hybrid storage.